James Wan Talks the Future of The Conjuring Universe Including The Crooked Man and The Conjuring 3

With Annabelle: Creation coming out this Friday, we’re really beginning to see the scope and style of James Wan’s plan for a cinematic universe that surrounds Ed and Lorraine Warren, the protagonists of The Conjuring films. Now, in a recent interview with EW, Wan spills the details on where things stand with The Crooked Man, The Nun, and The Conjuring 3!

Wan tells the site, “When we were starting out, when we made the first Conjuring, we always kind of quietly, jokingly, among ourselves, felt that the world of the Warrens, and all the interesting artifacts they have in their haunted room, could have their own stories and therefore spawn movies,” says Wan. “We had hopes and aspirations but we never thought in our wildest dreams that we could actually go on and do it.”

Speaking about The Crooked Man spin-off, Wan explains that the film is in, “…early stages, kind of like cooking away. But we think we have a really exciting story. What we want to do, with The Conjuring universe, is we want each of our little offshoots to have a very different flavor, right? So, for example, Annabelle is the classic sort-of haunted doll subgenre. And with The Crooked Man, I would love to push it more down somewhat of that dark fairytale, and more whimsical, subgenre. I love the idea that, within the Conjuring universe, each of our little movies all have their own flavor, so that way they don’t feel like they’re the same films.”

As for a third The Conjuring film? “We’ve been working hard on Conjuring 3,” says Wan. “Of course, that is something that I am not neglecting. The Conjuring films are still the mothership and the mothership needs to be strong. The mothership needs to be strong for all these other jet fighters to shoot out of. So, we’re in the midst of working on the script, and still hashing [it] out. We want to make sure that the script is in a really good place. With how much people have loved the first two Conjuring, I don’t want to rush in to the third one if possible.”